SUMMERVILLE, Ga. - A man died Thursday morning as flames charred the top of a white split-level home.
The fire erupted around 2 a.m. at 361 Fourth St., killing 35-year-old Charlie Gifford. Two other men were inside the house, said Summerville Assistant Fire Chief David Emery. They heard Gifford's yells for help and someone called 911.
The call came in at 2:11 a.m., Emery said, and local firefighters were on the scene in four minutes. But they could not save Gifford.
The cause of the fire was unknown as of Thursday afternoon, but members of the Georgia Fire Marshal's Office were investigating.
Gifford lived around the corner from his 7-year-old son and the child's mother, just a couple blocks north of downtown Summerville. Gifford's roommate knocked on the child's mother's door around 3 a.m. Thursday to tell her about the fire.
She asked not to be identified Thursday but said she was having trouble explaining to her son what happened to his father, only telling him that Gifford had gone to heaven.
Susan Locklear, who works at City Hall as the Summerville Main Street manager, said many people in town would recognize Gifford, even if they did not know him. To get around, he rode his bicycle through Summerville.
"He was just one of those guys you always saw," Locklear said
Gifford's death marks the ninth fatality because of a house fire in Chattooga County this year, Emery said. On Oct. 23, four children and two adults died in a mobile home on Airport Road and Trion. The Fire Marshal ruled that fire an accident, caused by a wood stove heater that had not been installed the right way.
"We can go several years without any [fires]," Emery said Thursday, though he did not have official statistics handy. "To have one is even unusual for us."
In the October case, investigators could not figure out whether the family had a smoke detector. On Thursday, Emery said firefighters couldn't see one at the home on Fourth Street, either.
He said the uptick in deaths this year had nothing to do with the dry conditions that created wildfires in Georgia and Tennessee.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.